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DPRK denounces

Clinton's visit

to S korea

TOKYO: North Korea on Saturday denounced a brief visit by U.S. President Bill Clinton to South Korea, planned for next Tuesday, as encouragement to "war maniacs."

In Pyongyang's first comment on the trip, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) monitored in Tokyo said the visit was a desperate attempt to free South Korea from extreme isolation.

"South Korea-U.S. cooperation is not a way out but a road to destruction," KCNA said.

"The U.S. should stop bringing importance of alliance home to the South Korean puppets and encouraging the war maniacs."

Clinton only recently added the South Korean stop to a trip that takes him to Japan from April 16 to 18 and then on to Russia for a nuclear summit.

"It is clear that the sudden South Korea visit by the U.S. President...may be a result of the mendicant diplomacy of the South Korean puppets, who are trying to free themselves from an extreme isolation," KCNA said.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has risen sharply this month since North Korea announced it was abandoning its obligations under the armistice agreement that ended the 1950-1953 Korean War and followed this with three incursions into the heavily-fortified Demilitarized Zone between the two countries.

South Korean state radio reported on Saturday that Pyongyang had heightened its monitoring of the DMZ, operating three of the seven video cameras the North had set up earlier in the border village of Panmunjom.

"The North Koreans are keeping a close watch on the southern side. The cameras were installed before, but were not put into operation until 8 p.m. last night," the radio quoted an unnamed miitary official as saying.

The tense North-South stand-off was expected to be the main focus of the talks between Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young-sam, to take place on southern Cheju island .'-Reuter